Your Right to Know

Enlarge ImageRequest to buy this photofile photoSen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and 10 other members of the Senate Judiciary Committee OK’d a bill yesterday to increase penalties for so-called straw purchasers of firearms.

WASHINGTON — In Congress’ first gun votes since the Newtown, Conn., nightmare, the Senate
Judiciary Committee voted yesterday to toughen federal penalties against illegal firearms
purchases, even as senators signaled that a deep partisan divide remained over gun curbs.

The Democratic-led panel voted 11-7 to impose penalties of up to 25 years for people who legally
buy firearms but give them to someone else for use in a crime or to people legally barred from
acquiring weapons. The panel’s top Republican, Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, cast the only GOP
vote for the measure.

President Barack Obama urged lawmakers to vote on gun curbs, including the bill approved
yesterday, which lawmakers named for Hadiya Pendleton, the Chicago teenager who was fatally shot
days after performing at Obama’s inauguration.

Congress should consider those bills “because we need to stop the flow of illegal guns to
criminals, and because Hadiya’s family and too many other families really do deserve a vote,” Obama
said at an Interior Department ceremony.

The parties’ differences were underscored when senators debated a proposal by Sen. Dianne
Feinstein, D-Calif., to ban assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines. Democrats have
noted that such firearms have been used in many recent mass shootings.

“The time has come, America, to step up and ban these weapons,” said Feinstein, a lead sponsor
of a 1994 assault-weapons ban that expired a decade later. She added, “How could I stand by and see
this carnage go on?”

The response from Republicans was that banning such weapons was unconstitutional, would take
firearms from law-abiding citizens, and would have little impact because only a small percentage of
crimes involve assault weapons or magazines carrying many rounds of ammunition.

“Are we really going to pass another law that will have zero effect, then pat ourselves on the
back for doing something wonderful?” said Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, the No. 2 Senate
Republican.

The two other bills would require background checks for nearly all gun purchases and provide
around $40 million a year for schools to buy security equipment. The committee was expected to vote
on those measures and the assault weapons ban on Tuesday.